Q: When is a price not a price?
A: When it’s a “Displaypreis”
What sounds like a bad joke actually happened to me at a local supermarket last week – the very simple case of when the price on the shelf does not match the price in the computer.
Of course, this being Germany there is a law to govern such things and it is called the Preisangabenverordnung and acts in a similar way to the Sale of Goods act in the UK. As I understand it, you cannot display a price on the shelf and then ask for a higher one at the till.
And yet it happens and I am usually more than willing to point this out and insist on paying the price that was on display.
Over the years I have experienced various answers. Most supermarkets will just check that I am right and charge me the lower price, although I remember taking one employee to a shelf to show that the price in the computer was off by several Deutschmarks, only for them to remove the sign in question and say “so, now it’s not anymore” and insist on the higher price.
I have also been in supermarkets when the prices have been raised during the course of the day, so that the price on the shelf changed after I took something off it!
But the absolute winner in excuses was the one last week. The Displaypreis.
You see, the article in question was actually available in two places in the same aisle – at different prices. I took mine from the lower priced area and the cashier wanted to charge me the higher price. So I queried it, and was told that the price was correct. The lower price was a Displaypreis.
So what is a Displaypreis? I was sent back to the department for an explanation.
It turned out that the item was available either on a normal shelf at the normal price, or at the second location as part of a “display”. Although both items carried the same bar codes for the consumer, the number to order the items individually was different to the number to order a palette at a time – for the display. To make life easier for the staff, someone had decided to leave the price showing the palette order number of the shelf, even though the price itself was no longer valid.
And there was no way that this employee was going to give in, despite me telling him that it was even worse than making a mistake – he was deliberately leaving the wrong price on the shelf. He even went as far as to forbid me taking a photo of his wrong price with my mobile phone.
It was only when I threatened to call the town hall the next day and report the shop to the relevant authority for unfair trading, that he decided to call the duty manager… who took one look at the sign, ordered him to remove it, and proceeded to refund what I had effectively been overcharged.
It was only a small amount, but it was a moral victory. After all, how many other people would have fallen for it, if it had remained on display?
About Graham
This has happened to me, too.
Scenario in Germany: This is the wrong (lower) price. “Take it or leave” it is the general attitude of the clerks.
Scenario in the U.S.: The price comes us higher at the till, clerk checks to find item marked lower by mistake. Get’s manager’s approval to sell item at the lower advertised price.
Cultural differences in retail practice and customers’ rights.
Don’t get me started! In January I was at a store where various items were marked down in the sale. Except when I went to the till, it rang up at the original price. I pointed out what I assumed was an error, only to be told that the discounts would not be available until the next morning. I asked why they had it on the shelf today in that case. I was told that they wanted the prices on the shelf in time for when the store opened in the morning, so they had hung up the labels in advance. Right.
I also asked to see the manager, who initially suggested I come back next day to buy the item at a discount – but then saw sense and sold it to me for the lower price.
German retailers… can’t live with ’em…